Paddy Healy, Independent Candidate for Seanad Eireann

national | politics / elections | press release Friday March 18, 2011 20:10 by Paddy Healy

Paddy Healy, Former President, TUI,

Independent Candidate for Seanad Eireann

Tireless Campaigner for Education and Public Services

An Independent Voice for All Public Servants including Teachers, Lecturers, Social Workers, Health Workers, All Administrative and Maintenance Staff , and all Public Service Pensioners as New Government Promises to eliminate 25,000 Jobs

A Voice for Academic Freedom As New Government Reinforces Existing Threats and Department of Education threatens further pay cuts for Lecturers.

Paddy Healy 086-4183732, paddy.healy@eircom.net, Blog: http://paddyhealy.wordpress.com

Tá Leagan Gaeilge ar mo bhlog---

A Voice For Post-Doctoral Researchers,Postgrads and Temporary Teachers

A Voice for all employees, the unemployed, Occupational Pensioners and the Needy at Home and Abroad

Tireless Campaigner

Paddy is Chairman of the National Public Service Alliance—an informal alliance of public service trade union activists which is fighting public service pay cuts, pension levy, work overload, staffing moratorium and destruction of conditions of service under the Croke Park Deal

He is Convenor of the Campaign for Academic Freedom which recently held a gathering of 200 academics in the Gresham Hotel to resist threats to academic freedom, permanency and tenure arising out of the implementation of the Croke Park Deal in Third level institutions: The New Government in its programme threatens: “We will introduce radical reform in third level institutions to maximise existing funding, in particular, reform of academic contracts and will encourage greater specialisation by educational institutions.”

He is resisting the imposition of business models on 3rd Level education as proposed in the Hunt Report

He is organising opposition to the shameful treatment of Post-doctoral Researchers in third level institutions and seeking a permanent career structure for researchers and a new deal under which Postgraduate Students carrying out teaching work would get properly paid for each hour worked. He is totally opposed to the attempt to make Student Nurses work for nothing.

He is Chairman of the Campaign to Reverse the Pension Cuts which is organising a legal challenge to the recent public service pension cuts. He is fighting for the removal of the Universal Social Charge which is unfairly reducing private occupational pensions.

He is campaigning against cuts in public services such as health, education and social work and the elimination of jobs under the staffing moratorium.

He is campaigning for the restoration of the full quota of Special Duties and Assistant Principal posts in schools

Job Creation and Investment

He advocates a major programme of state job creation in sophisticated modern industry to employ the 100,000 qualified people who are now on the dole and being forced to emigrate

He is continuing his long standing campaign to increase investment in Education at all levels.

About Paddy Healy

More at http://wp.me/PKzXa-2

Chair National Public Service Alliance, Global Solidarity Champion,

Former President Teachers Union of Ireland(TUI), Lecturer in Physics(retd),

Research Interest: Musical Instrument Acoustics, Former member of

Governing Body and Academic Council DIT,

Ag Freastail ar Daonscoil na Mumhan sa Rinn gach blian,

Former Treasurer Irish National Organisation of the Unemployed(INOU),

Former Executive Member Dublin Council of Trade Unions.

He Lives at Griffith Court, Fairview, D 3 and is a native of Clonmel, Co Tipperary

Radical Change Needed

To make possible the objectives set out above, Fundamental Change is required.

Government Policy

Irish sovereignty must be recovered by facing down the EU and the IMF and insisting on a structured negotiated default under which the debts of banks, then privately owned, would not be paid while rescuing small investors and credit unions. The capitulation of the New Government to the EU/IMF will lead to disaster.

Mortgage Debt on principal domestic residences which was inflated during the property bubble must be reduced. Interest rates must be frozen and the capital sum reduced to current house values. Evictions must be banned.

The 90 Billion lent out recklessly by finance houses since 2003 must be recovered. This can be done by the imposition of a tax on large assets outside the domestic residence and the farm.

Reductions in Social Welfare, and increased taxes on the lowly paid must be reversed.

Cuts in Public services must end now. Cuts in disability services and in Special Needs Provision are particularly reprehensible

Trade Union Reform

The ICTU leadership has failed the members of trade unions. Members of the leadership sat on the Board of the Central Bank and on the the National Social and Economic Council(NESC) and on bodies such as the Board of Fás through the period of reckless borrowing and extreme right-wing policies. Apart from faint bleatings, nobody shouted stop.

Now there are 450,000 people on the dole, one thousand per week emigrating, public service pay and pensions cut, thousands of frontline posts eliminated, massive increase in workload of teachers, lecturers, nurses, other health professionals, social workers and public servants generally, cuts in social welfare benefits etc

Now the, The SIPTU leader who is also ICTU President is reported as having given qualified support to the formation of a FG-LAB coalition whose programme for Government contains a commitment to eliminate 25,000 public service jobs!! “Siptu chief Jack O'Connor claimed the Programme for Government was the best of the alternatives available" Irish Independent 07/03

There has been a total leadership failure in ICTU

The calling off of campaigns and the supine acceptance of cuts and income reductions has disoriented thousands of members.

In my forthcoming book which is available on line at http://wp.me/pKzXa-gw ,I argue for complete renewal of the trade union movement both in its leadership and structures to restore control of the unions to members. This renewal must come from within the movement without legislative interference. The title of the work is : “How ICTU Failed US, the Necessity for Election and Regular Re-Election of General Secretaries.”

Supporters Who Recommend NO 1 Vote for Paddy Healy

I am very grateful to the 160 public servants who are recommending a vote for me to colleagues. I regret that the full list can only be read on my Blog at:

http://wp.me/pKzXa-gB

All have added their names in a personal capacity

Domhnall Sheridan, Chair Dublin Colleges (DIT) Branch, TUI

Cathleen Bowen, Retired Hospital Manager,

Secretary, Campaign for Reversal of Public Service Pension Cuts, Cork

Ben Bishop Chair Dublin City Post Primary Branch, TUI

Dr Colmán Etchingham, Chair NUI Maynooth Branch

Executive Member, Irish Federation of University Teachers

Prof Vincent Toal, School of Physics, DIT

Oisin Kelly, Former Education Officer, UCD Students Union

Prof Kathleen Lynch, Equality Studies, UCD

John O’Sullivan, Lecturer in Engineering, CIT, Cork

Dr Gordon Dalton, Chair Association of Research Contract Staff, UCC,

President of Irish Research Staff Association.

Sean Connolly,Teacher,Rathmines College of Further Education. Dublin

Professor James Heffron MRIA, Department of Biochemistry, UCC

Prof Tadhg Foley, Emeritus, NUI Galway

Dr. Tony Bonfield, Mary Immaculate College, Limerick.

Prof Sean Tobin, Emeritus, NUI Galway

Dr Keith Breen, School of Politics, QUB

Peter Homan,Outreach Worker , South Dublin, HSE

Prof Mary Gallagher, French Studies, UCD

Professor Dermot Barnes-Holmes, Psychology, NUI Maynooth

Andy Storey, Lecturer, School of Politics,UCD,

Chair Action From Ireland (AFRI)

Donnacha O’hEallaithe, Indreabhán, Conamara

Dr Kevin Farrell, Executive Member, TUI

Gerald Brennan, Chairman Cork City Schools, TUI

Barry Williams, Chair, Co Louth Branch, TUI

Manus Brennan, Executive Member, TUI , Donegal Town

Deputy Seamus Healy, TD, South Tipperary

James McMorrow, Co Leitrim Branch Secretary, TUI

Josephine O Donnell, CEO VEC, Co Longford (Retired)

Prof Michael Cronin, DCU

Fergus Hastings, Staff Officer, GISC, Castlebar.

Professor Gary Henehan, Food Science, DIT

John Evoy, Gorey Adult Learning Centre Manager, Co. Wexford VEC

Dr Eabhnat Ní Fhloinn,Director, Maths Centre, DCU

Andy Storey, Lecturer, School of Politics,UCD, Chair AFRI

Kieran Walshe, Boyne Branch, TUI

Oliver McCormack, Teacher (RETD), Tullamore, Co Offally

Dr David O Brien, Lecturer, DIT

Bernie Freeman, Clerical officer, HSe West, Nenagh, Co Tipp

Dr Eilish O’Donohoe, Lecturer in Chemistry, DIT